CANNON
BALLS AND BOULES BALLS
War
wounds of Valenciennes Cathedral
Valenciennes
is not exactly a top travel destination. It's usually not on the list
of major tourist attractions,
but is
well
worth
a visit, a lovelly and quiet French town with a long history,
lying near France's northern border a few kilometers from Belgium.
Valenciennes, in
times 
gone by was the key city of Hainaut which is now divided between
the two French speaking countries near Mons, Belgium,
scenes of the first battle of WWI, (see Mons),
Hainaut is of old historical interest to both Great Britain
and France because it was the ancestral land
of England's
Queen Philippa, wife of Edward III and mother of The Black Prince
(see Traitor's
Gate to Mortimer's Hole).
Valenciennes
was swallowed by France following the Thirty Years War, and saw it moment in the Napoleonic Wars (see Josias Saxe-Coburg and Strudel) but lying as
it does on the direct path of the flatland between
Germany and Paris, Valenciennes has been in the cross-hairs of European
wars
for centuries. It still bears the scars of the last two world war conflicts.
Unlike many other major European
cities caught in World
War II, who have polished the war damage with reconstruction and patch
work, a walk through the narrow streets in this quiet city where the men play Boules on a quiet
weekday afternoon, reveals a haunting pattern
of bullet and shell pockmark scars on the stone walls.
One can almost
feel the muzzle flash of street
to street fighting. Step into the blackened
Gothic Cathedral, somber, serene and Holy sanctuary with a magifincent
Gothic altar, you cannot help but notice
the stained glass on one side of the high towering
nave contrasted with the plain slightly gray glass on the other. The
blast of the
bombshell echoes in your head as you feel the ground shake and
the glass and smoke fly, as the terrified town locals cower for safety
from war's indiscriminant vengeance. It is places like this where memory
is etched into the walls. © Bargain
Travel Europe
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SEE ALSO:
GORGE-EOUS LUXEMBOURG
NOTRE DAME DU ROC - CASTELLANE
VIEWS FROM THE TOP
NOTRE DAME PARIS - GOTHIC LANDMARK
